Copper Mountain, CO - Colorado's Village at Copper is hosting its first "goodbye summer, hello winter" event this Friday through Sunday in the form of Back to School/Back to Snow, a fall festival featuring a village-wide sidewalk sale and live music by Rojos Calientes, P-NUCKLE, and the Trevor Hall Duo, as well as what may well be the season's earliest ski swap, hosted by Team Summit. Guests will watch movie trailers from Teton Gravity Research (TGR), Matchstick, Propaganda and Blacksmith, as well as the new Two Plank video world premiere, an activity Poker Run with a chance to win a 2008-09 Copper Mountain season pass, a BMX stunt show, Karaoke and, of course, 2008-09 season pass sales. Copper's entire Back to School/Back to Snow event is free.



The Team Summit Ski Swap is making its debut at the Copper Pavilion Sept. 13 and 14, and will be a satellite location for the main ski swap held in the Riverwalk Center in Breckenridge. This ski swap is one of the largest fundraisers for Team Summit, with a percentage of the gear purchased at the swap to benefit the Team, a local competitive ski and snowboard club for athletes ages 5-and-up that provides year-round programs in alpine, freestyle, and telemark skiing and snowboarding to residents of Summit County, Colorado's Front Range and guests. Vendors will bring new equipment from previous seasons to sell at very competitive prices, and as an extra incentive to get there early, the first 20 guests in the door of the ski swap on Saturday will receive a $20 gift card, good at all participating merchants at Copper.

SOS Outreach will be holding a Snow Gear Drive, accepting soft and hard goods during the Team Summit Ski Swap for at-risk youth learning how to ski and snowboard. Drop off donations to the Pavilion during the ski swap or visit the Conference Services Department prior to the event, where items will gladly be accepted.

The Yellow Designs Stunt BMX show will feature X-Games and Dew Action Sports Tour athletes performing high-flying, mind-boggling spins and twists combining individual and choreographed stunts on Sat., Sept. 13 from 5 - 6 p.m. In addition, there will be BMX demos, DVD, T-shirt, poster and sticker giveaways, and a meet and greet with the performers.

Check out a free live show by Rojos Calientes on Friday evening, Sept. 12 from 6 – 8 p.m. on the West Lake stage. Their influences range from Peruvian and South American folksy music to bluegrass, country Americana, rock, Jam and more. P-NUCKLE, playing a free show at 6 p.m. on Sat., Sept. 13 on the West Lake stage, has blazed a trail in the alternative scene by combining solid grooves, fat bass lines and memorable hooks with their blend of reggae, dub, ska and punk rock styles. For 20-year-old Trevor Hall, music is a meditation, an expression of love and a means to bring people together. Check out Trevor Hall Duo right after P-NUCKLE.

Guests will have a chance to try some select activities for free on Sat., Sept. 13, while trying to win a Copper season pass during the activity Poker Run. Participants meet in Burning Stones Plaza at 2 p.m. and from there will receive detailed instructions. Basically, there are five participating activities – go-karts, the climbing wall, the bumper boats, the quad power jump and mini-golf – where guests have to complete a challenge relevant to that activity and then receive a playing card. After completing the five challenges at the activities, guests will have five cards that will make up their poker hand. The faster you can get through the activities the better because as a bonus, the first three participants to finish all five activities get an extra card for their poker hand. The participant with the best five-card poker hand wins a 2008-09 Copper season pass.